Cocos nucifera indoors in Zagreb, Croatia

[CGMarko]

Hi!

I already posted about my coconut in this topic - 

But I decided to make a seperate topic to document updates on my coconut.

My coconut was bought from a local supermarket (Plodine) on 17th May 2023.

The coconut was perfect when I bought it, but unfortunately the day I bought it it was unusually windy and cold for that time of the year. The coconut suffered damage shortly after as I was exiting the store. One leaf was broken and it’s still on support, other leaves soon after had some browning.

I kept it in my apartment in a not so bright location in its original soil for the time being.

I repotted it on May 21 first into a plastic (possibly PVC, not sure) pot that is 57 cm (22.4 inches) tall and 30 cm (11.8 inches) wide at top. It didn’t have any holes, so I made 4 holes on the bottom. I didn’t like the soil it came with, it was soaking wet, but I still decided to not remove it when repotting. I put like 10 cm (4 inches) of LECA at the bottom of the pot, and I made a soil mix of mostly coconut coir that I mixed with perlite and COMPO soil for green plants and palms.

On 26th May I moved it next to an eastern window. I didn’t bother slowly getting it used to direct light. There was no visible damage from moving it. People often warn about slowly adapting plants when moving into direct light, but thing is that glass blocks most UV light, especially the harshest ones, so it’s probably easier to do so next to a window compared to outdoors.

i was still bothered by the soil that my coconut came with, as it was very wet on my moisture meter. On June 2nd I slowly scooped out all the soil and mixed it with the rest of the soil and again potted my coconut. I noticed there was root growth since I repotted it and the roots looked very healthy. I also learned about the white nodes they have on their roots that they use for air. The same day was the first time I watered it with regular tap water with very small amounts of COMPO fertillizer for green plants and palms. I also added 2 COMPO slow release fertilizer sticks for green plants and palms. I should probably have used more fertilizer, since most of my soil is coconut coir.

On June 5th my Ikea Hektar floor lamp arrived and my 36 W Sansi grow full-spectrum grow bulb and my Sansi clip-on double-head (2x10 W) lamp (2x10 W LED grow lamp are included with it). I use it every day when there’s no direct sunlight for as long as there is light outside (basically 11 AM to 21 PM CEST time). The Hektar lamp comes with like an enclosure, but I prefer it without it to reduce overheating.

In that room it’s mostly 50-70% humidity and temperatures around 22-28 degrees C (72-82 F) since I got it. I use no humidifier, Zagreb is humid and I live like 100 m away from a 100 m wide river.

Recently, the smallest/oldest leaf started browning. It doesn’t look like it’s doing so as result of stress, but it could be.

There is no new to me visible damage to the plant since the early days (other than the oldest leave drying), but also no visible growth.

I remove dust from its leaves with a make-up brush (never used for anything other than removing dust from plants) from time to time. I also poke holes to aerate the soil with a very narrow 50 cm (20 inch) pointed bamboo stick.

Into the future, I plan to use recommended dose fertilizer and distilled water when watering. I didn’t want to use a lot of fertilizer before I saw it growing, but the nutrient-poor soil may be the reason that there is no growth.

I will keep updating this post, and I welcome any advice!

Edited June 21, 2023 by CGMarko

[CGMarko]

I now add citric acid to tap water and water it with that to reduce pH of my tap water from ~7.5 to slightly acidic. I again mixed up the soil and ammended it with pine bark for orchids. I now have to water it fairly frequently as it keeps drying out fast (at least one per week). It produced a new frond since last update and another is already in the making. If anyone has ideas what the white spots on the new frond mean or the black spot on the developing one I would greatly appreciate it.

[Brandon39.5]

I have the same one, I live in Mallorca (Spain) I bought from my local garden center for 30 euros and it had the same grey pot as the one you bought, that means that it comes from the same provider/nursery, do you know where the coconut comes from? do you know wich variety is?

[Brandon39.5]

3 hours ago, CGMarko said:

I now add citric acid to tap water and water it with that to reduce pH of my tap water from ~7.5 to slightly acidic. I again mixed up the soil and ammended it with pine bark for orchids. I now have to water it fairly frequently as it keeps drying out fast (at least one per week). It produced a new frond since last update and another is already in the making. If anyone has ideas what the white spots on the new frond mean or the black spot on the developing one I would greatly appreciate it.

I dont know what the spots are, maybe spider mites? very typicall on coconut palms indoors, I used to have one indoors and it started to get brown and died, it had root rot. if you buy one of these coconut palms allways check where the drainages holes to see if the roots that come out of the drainage holes have root rot. this year I bought another one that didn't have root rot and I've putted the coconut on 80% sand and 20% normal potting soil, and is doing good for the moment. I'm planning to have the coconut outdoors from may to november. And when is too cold for the coconut I will have it indoors or in a greenhouse.

[SeanK]

To me, it looks like the air is a little too dry, hence the browning of the older leaf. Perhaps misting might help.  While you still enjoy summer, I suggest taking it outside in a shady area and drench the soil each week. Also, spray an insecticide or horticultural oil on it in case it has mites or scale.

[CGMarko]

4 hours ago, Brandon39.5 said:

I have the same one, I live in Mallorca (Spain) I bought from my local garden center for 30 euros and it had the same grey pot as the one you bought, that means that it comes from the same provider/nursery, do you know where the coconut comes from? do you know wich variety is?

 

[CGMarko]

2 hours ago, SeanK said:

To me, it looks like the air is a little too dry, hence the browning of the older leaf. Perhaps misting might help.  While you still enjoy summer, I suggest taking it outside in a shady area and drench the soil each week. Also, spray an insecticide or horticultural oil on it in case it has mites or scale.

It may be on the drier side for a coconut, but I still feel like 50-70% RH should be enough. The oldest leaf that died I think was just a case of it getting rid of an unproductive leaf, and on the ones afterwards I think it’s damage that happened during the transport of the palm.

The palm doesn’t have spider mites or other visible pests (I know how to ID them). I was suspecting nutrient deficiency of some kind.

[CGMarko]

4 hours ago, Brandon39.5 said:

I dont know what the spots are, maybe spider mites? very typicall on coconut palms indoors, I used to have one indoors and it started to get brown and died, it had root rot. if you buy one of these coconut palms allways check where the drainages holes to see if the roots that come out of the drainage holes have root rot. this year I bought another one that didn't have root rot and I've putted the coconut on 80% sand and 20% normal potting soil, and is doing good for the moment. I'm planning to have the coconut outdoors from may to november. And when is too cold for the coconut I will have it indoors or in a greenhouse.

No root rot or spider mites. The plant roots were very healthy when I repotted it.

[CGMarko]

Today I killed him. He was doing pretty good, pushed about one new frond per month, but as I checked him he had a pretty big spider mite infestation, so I killed him. I would've fought it if I already hadn't made the decision to get rid of him in the next few years (my plan was selling him), but this way it just had to be done. I feel horrible about it and I got emotionally attached to him, but it wasn't meant to be. Sorry. RIP.

[Brandon39.5]

3 hours ago, CGMarko said:

Today I killed him. He was doing pretty good, pushed about one new frond per month, but as I checked him he had a pretty big spider mite infestation, so I killed him. I would've fought it if I already hadn't made the decision to get rid of him in the next few years (my plan was selling him), but this way it just had to be done. I feel horrible about it and I got emotionally attached to him, but it wasn't meant to be. Sorry. RIP.

That's a shame, it looked great! Coconuts are very tricky to have indoors, that was probably the right decision, a coconut indoors is going to give you more pain than happiness, they are very tricky. Maybe you could try with another species of palm.

[CGMarko]

9 hours ago, Brandon39.5 said:

That's a shame, it looked great! Coconuts are very tricky to have indoors, that was probably the right decision, a coconut indoors is going to give you more pain than happiness, they are very tricky. Maybe you could try with another species of palm.

Thank you! I bought it impulsively as I always wanted to try it once. I think I would be able to handle it if I just wasn't limited by the size of my apartment, as I would provide it with a lot of artificial light, high temperatures and decent humidity, but I quickly realized that I didn't have the space to achieve what I wanted to (the ultimate goal was to get it to fruit - I know, very difficult). I hope I'll be able to afford a proper greenhouse one day just to be able to grow a coconut.